3.1 - Kothari, Rajni - Meaning, Thruth and Ethical Value (en)

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Meaning, Thruth and Ethical Value

Meaning, Thruth and Ethical Value

by Rajni Kothari

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 3 / 1985, pages: 225-246, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=467d4faf-0559-446f-94e8-db67f71c7a00http://www.ceeol.com/


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Praxis International 5:3 October 1985 0260-8448 $ 2.00

PHILOSOPHY IN DEB A TE

MEANING, TRUTH AND ETHICAL-VALUE*

Peter Murphy

This inquiry is, in at least one crucial respect, archaeological. It addresses aproposalHabermas theory of universal pragmaticswhich its author, inmore recent times, has more or less laid to rest (even if he has not explicitlyrepudiated it). In order to fulfill his guiding intention of showing that

moral-practical assertions can be validated, we have seen Habermas move awayfrom the theory of speech acts which he put forward in the essay What isUniversal Pragmatics? towards a theory of moral-practical argumentationwhich dominates the whole tenor and direction of his discussion in The Theoryof Communicative Action. Yet, despite this shift, the interest in Habermasproposal for a universal pragmatics should not be regarded as purelyantiquarian, for three reasons:

(i) It represents one of two substantive solutions to his paradigm-guidingquestion: can moral-practical utterances be subjected to tests of validity? And,as an interesting (if ultimately unsatisfactory) solution to this question, itdeserves attention in its own right, and consideration of its plausibility andfruitfulness as one of a number of possible theoretical solutions.

(ii) The proposal for a universal pragmatics represents itself as much as atheory of meaning as a theory of truth; in doing so it introduces a form oftruth-conditional semantics, which has been carried over, and indeed made evenmore explicit, in Habermas later work. In this respect there is absolutely nodiscontinuity in Habermas approach between Communication and the Evolutionof Societyand The Theory of Communicative Action. He adopts what is essentiallythe received view of philosophical semanticswhich discusses the operation

of understanding utterances in terms of being able to judge the truth of what issaid. Although insisting on the extension of the received view to moral-practical assertions, Habermas maintains its intrinsic reductiveness, in particu-lar its depriving semantical questions of their proper autonomy.

(iii) Finally, we must ask whether Habermas move away from the ordinarylanguage approach of a universal pragmatics towards a theory of moral-practicalreasoning necessarily represents theoretical progress. If we define progress asgain without accompanying losses, then I would say that the step in fact doesnot represent theoretical progress in this strong sense. Yet there is a gain. Thereare substantive issues which Habermas can explain with a theory of argumenta-

tion which cannot be explained by the proposal for a universal pragmaticsbecause of its ordinary language presuppositions. Because the ordinarylanguage approach is rooted in the familiarity of everyday life, what it

*This is the first part of a two-part article. The second part will appear in a future issue ofPraxis International.


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comprehends poorly is the defamiliarizing effect of practical discourses: theway in which they shatter (or result from the shattering of ) the taken-for-grantedness of the normative structures of everyday life. Discourse theory ismuch better equipped to explain this. But what is gained in explanatory scope,by turning toward discourse theory, is accompanied by a crucial loss inexplanatory depth. Whereas the familiar normative frameworks of everydaylife provide a yardstick or criterion to judge moral-practical assertions, as soonas the self-evidentness of this framework is dissolved, the question is openedup: what types of reasonscan provide a basis for judging the validity of normativeframeworks which have been brought-into-question? Habermas answers thisquestion only in the negative. For us today he can say that mythical andmetaphysical/theologicalclusters of reasons cannot serve as good reasons forthe validation or criticism of norms. With this I would not quarrel. But whatclusters of reasons can or do serve in a positive sense to justify or devalidatenorms which have lost their self-evidentness? This Habermas theory does notaddress. The theory avoids the question by appealing to the normativeprocedures or presuppositions of discourses, while resolutely refusing toindicate the substantive groundsthat can and shouldbe used in rationally redeem-ing or criticising norms which have been defamiliarized. This failurerepresents a loss in comparison with the theory of speech acts. The ordinarylanguage theory could show how (in everyday life) we judge moral-practicalassertions in terms of familiar norms. The theory of discourse, on the other

hand, fails to indicate what kinds of substantive grounds discourse partnershave recourse to when judging the validity of higher-order assertions (viz. thenorms themselves) when they lose their taken-for-granted character.

The Consensus Theory of Truth

The ordinary language approach which most influenced Habermas proposalfor a universal pragmatics was originally introduced by J.L. Austin. But it wasnot from Austin so much as from John Searle (who adapted and developed

Austins ideas in the direction of a more formalized model) that Habermas tookover the foundations upon which he proceeded to build up his own distinctivetheory of speech acts. Following Searles lead, Habermas, in his essay onuniversal pragmatics, rejects the idea that there is a special class of utterance(prescriptions) that speakers use to generate interpersonal relationships,while another class (descriptions) is concerned with representing states ofaffairs in the world. Habermas accepts Searles view that all explicit (non-elliptical) speech acts may be divided into two components: the illocutionaryand the propositional. That, in other words, all utterances can be re-written inthe form F(RP). Habermas calls this the double structureof speech acts.

Habermas develops this idea in the following way.1 In explicit speech acts,speaker-listeners communicate on two levels simultaneously:

(1) On the level of intersubjectivity. Through illocutionary acts, speakers andhearers establish the relations that permit them to come to an understandingwith one another.

aCEEOL NL Germany


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(2) On the level of objects or states of affairs aboutwhich they reach anunderstanding.Speech acts are composed of a performative (or illocutionary) clause and adependent clause with a propositional content. These clauses correlate with thetwo levels of communication. The main clause contains a personal pronoun inthe first person as its subject expression, a personal pronoun in the secondperson as its object expression and a predicate that is formed by means of aperformative expression in the present tense (I promise you that . . .). Thedependent clause contains a noun or referring expression as a subject expressionthat denotes an object and a predicate expression for the universal attribute thatis asserted or denied of the object. Habermas also specifies the differencebetween the two components of speech acts in terms of different systems of

referencespecific to illocutionary and propositional clauses. In the case of pro-

positional clauses, referring expressions are used to denote objects (and theirspatio-temporal co-ordinates) in the world about which speaker-listenersconverse. In the case of iilocutionary clauses, referring expressions are used todenote speakers and listeners (or potential speakers). Speakers can refer tothemselves as I (I order . . ., I say . . ., I promise . . . etc.) andidentify others they wish to enter into a communication relationship with asYou (I order you. . ., I say to you . . ., I promise you . . . etc.). Thefunction of the propositional or dependent clause is to pick out some person oract, thing or event and ascribe a characteristic to that object, while the perfor-

mative clause functions to identify the speaker(s) and addressee(s) in order for acommunicative relationship to be established between them.The propositional clause of a speech act is characterised as beingdependenton

the illocutionary clause in so far as the illocutionary clause (or more specificallythe performative verb contained in the clause) indicates the way in which thecontent of the propositional clause is to be understood. Habermas point can beillustrated with reference to the following example: The sentence John willclose the door (A) ascribes (prospectively) an act to a person. It can be used toexpress a proposition. But in every case of this sentence beinguttered it mustalways be conjoined (explicitly or implicitly) with a performative clause. The

uttering of the sentence necessarily entails the performing of a speech act. But,as Austin showed in his discussion of illocutionary acts, speakers do not alwaysmake explicit, that is bring to the level of articulateness, the act theynevertheless perform.2 Such utterances, however, can be subsequently re-written to show the performative clause that was unasserted, but tacitlyemployed, by the speaker in uttering the sentence, viz. in the case of (A), (Iamtelling you) John will close the door. But Habermas is not just saying that aspeaker in uttering sentence (A) is doing something, performing a speech actionwhich can be identified (viz. making a prophecy or prediction) and madeexplicit. He goes further than this. What he suggests is that not only must a

sentencewith propositional content be conjoined with a performative clause inorder to be uttered, but that the same propositional contentmay be combinedwith a variety of different performatives, so that a speaker might not onlypredict or prophesize (constate) such a content, but may also wish or command(etc.) the same propositional content (such as Johns anticipated closing of the


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door). We can hold a prepositional content invariant vis-a-vis the differenttypes of speech acts in which it appears.3 We have already encountered thissort of argument in Searle. Habermas draws a firm distinction betweenprepositional content and propositional sentences. It is Habermas view that inall speech acts, except the constative type, propositional content is (normally)unasserted; that is to say, it is merely mentioned rather than spelt out in anexplicit propositional sentence. But that in every case where propositionalcontent is mentioned, it can be transposed into an explicit propositionalsentence.4 To use Searles terminology, the sentence employed by the speakercan be re-written to make into a sentence the propositional content mentionedbut not asserted explicitly in the utterance. Thus, a cluster of sentences usedby speakers such as John, close the door, If only John would close the door,John will close the door, can be re-written not only to bring into focus theunasserted performative clause (Austin), but in the case of non-constativeutterances to identify and re-formulate the propositional content (common tothe utterances) as a propositional sentence. The re-writing procedure per-formed, the cluster of sentences will have the form:

FI say to youI order youI express a wish

to you

P Propositional sentencethat John will close

the door.

It is Habermas view, then, that all classes of utterances (constative andnon-constative) contain a clause with propositional contentin which an objectis referred to and a predicate asserted or denied of the object (e.g., ascribed toJohn (R) is his closing of the door (P)). This, of course, is central to the

argument that all utterances have a double (performative/propositlonal)structure. Searle, as weve seen, argues that the performative clause modifiesthe relationship between R and Pso that the relationship of ascriptionpertains only in the case where the performative clause includes a constativeverb. Where a non-constative verb is present, the relationship will beotherwise. For example, where a wish or command is performedhis closing of the door is desired of John

is orderedrather than asserted of John.

Habermas similarly suggests that the performative clause fixes the sense in

which the propositional content is to be taken. At the level of the performativeclause, the speaker chooses the illocutionary role in which the propositionalcontent is to be used.5 Habermas elsewhere says that the performative verbsexpress the meaning of the particular mode in which the propositional clauseis being employedthat is, whether the sentence with propositional content is


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used in the sense of a constative, expressive or regulative.6

Whereas the double structure of speech thesis allowed Searle to argue thatought-statements may be true or false because, in common with all otherutterances, they contain a propositional content (a thesis incidentally notcontradicted by Habermas), Habermas, on the other hand, radicalises thisproblem of verification. In the first place Habermas proposes that truth-judgements are only one example of a broader class of validity-judgements.Habennas puts forward the thesis that any human agent performing a speechact cannot avoid raising four separate validity claimsclaims that what isuttered by the speaker is valid. These claims are universally built into thestructure of speech.7 And in every speech act performed they are all raisedsimultaneously.8 The validity claims connected with speech acts are those of:9

(i)Comprehensibility.

The claim that each sentence the speaker employs in aspeech act is well-formed in accordance with the grammatical rules of thespeakers natural language and thus when employed in a situation of possibleunderstanding can be comprehended by all those who have mastered thesegrammatical rules.(ii) Truth. The claim that the speaker communicates a true propositionrepresenting a state of affairs so that the hearer can share the knowledge of thespeaker about something or some event in the world.*

(iii) Truthfulness. The claim that the speaker expresses her or his intentionstruthfully so that the hearer can trust the speaker or that the speaker expresses

feelings, desires, etc., so that these avowals actually correspond with thespeakers inner nature. It is the claim that, when the speaker represents an innerstate (to which s/he has privileged access) publicly to others, the speaker does soauthentically.(iv) Normative Correctness. The claim that the utterance of the speaker andmore specifically the illocutionary component of that utterance, in raising theprospect of an interpersonal relationship with a hearer, conforms to a mutuallyrecognised normative background. The validity claim of rightness is that thespeech act was performed in conformity with this normative background (orthat the normative context that the speech act is supposed to satisfy is itself

legitimate). Habermas agrees with the Searlian view that an ought-statementcan be true or false on the grounds that it contains a propositional content (auniversal characteristic of speech acts) but suggests that, as well as this,ought-statements (not as a special case, but in common with all other types ofutterance) may succeed or fail as sentences in a natural language, they may be

* This notion of truth, however, is inapplicable to those propositional contents which do not describe, but

which explain(either in a commonsense or a theoretical way) actions or events. Habermas simply doesnot discuss in what ways explanations (causal, motivational, etc.) can be judged for their validityor the

questions of validity that arise in connection with using certain explanatory categories in respect of certain

explanandums (e.g., using the category of final causes to explain events in the physical world)or indeed

even whether the validity judgements of explanations are the same as or different from the validity

judgements of descriptions. For illuminating discussions of the possible ways in which theoretical

explanations in the social and physical sciences can be evaluated, see Agnes Heller, A Theory of History(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982) and Thomas Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgement and Theory Choice,

The Essential Tension(University of Chicago Press, 1977).


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made honestly or with the intention to deceive or mislead a communicationpartner, and they contain an illocutionary component which may or may notbring actors into a relationship intended by the speaker, depending on theconformity of the illocutionary act to a shared normative background. If we canconsider truth as concerned with the relationship of an utterance to the externalworld, correspondingly argues Habermas, the relationship of an utterance tothe social world of norms and the inner world of intentions, feelings and desiresalso raises questions of validity.10

The second way in which Habermas radicalises the problems of verification isby moving away from the traditional emphasis of inquiries of this type. Theseinquiries usually concentrate attention on the content of (validity) judgements,substantially neglecting the illocutionary act in which the judgement isembedded. In judging (for example a constative true or false) an interlocutormakes an assessment of the utterance. But like any appraisal there mustimplicitly be a criterion applied in the making of the appraisaljust as when weappraise somebody as a good person we implicitly invoke certain criteria ofgoodness in making the assessment. The very implicitness of such criteriabehind judgements furnishes a compelling puzzle. What explicitly are thecriteria that interlocutors use in assessing a first-order utterance? And, then ifwe can identify such criteria, this in turn raises further questions. Canin fact, afirst-order utterance fulfil such criteria made explicit and, moreover, are thecriteria identified, in any case, sound?The explicit criteria of assessment identi-

fied by theories of truth include: (1) Those which concern the relationship of word and object. Various theories postulate an ideal relationship betweenword and object. An utterance is required to stand in this relationship to theobjective world. The criterion used to assess the utterance thus is whether ornot the utterance stands in this relation to the external world. The relationshipis variously defined (according to competing theories) as one of mirroring,resembling, picturing, corresponding to, uncovering, referring (andattributing characteristics which apply) to objects that exist in the world.* (2)Those which concern the relationship between word and word. Some theories oftruth, often indifferent to the relationship of word and object, postulate an

ideal relationship between the speakers utterance and other utterances. Therequirement may be that a speakers utterance cohere with (not contradict)other statements the speaker makes or that the speakers utterance not be incontradiction with the utterances of a particular person (Prophet, Authority) orcollectivity (Church, Party) represented as having a privileged access to thetruthor that the speakers utterance not contradict a special class of indubit-able (protocol) statements.

* When a proposition identifies some thing or person, act or event in the world, the reference is

feature-less; it bears no characteristics. The object identified is simply acknowledged to exist. Those theories

which take a relation of correspondence of word and object as the criterion of truth, treat the referring or

identifying function of propositions as if it was their only function. To say that a proposition is true is to say

that the fact to which it refers is or has being(Moore).11 Or, in Aristotles formulation, to say that what is, is orthat what is not, is not, is true.12 But, as Strawson argued, in making a statement, we refer to an object in orderto go onto characterise it (we indicate or refer in order to describe).13 The predicative expression contained inthe proposition attributes characteristics, qualities, relations, etc., to the object identified. This characterisa-


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tion of objects is not a copying or duplication of those objects. Unlike in the case of copying, the speaker indescribing an object orientates in a radically selective way toward the object. When a speaker says s is p, itis, as Schtz notes, never exclusively p, but many other things beside, including q, v, x, t, etc.14

Description involves the selective enumeration of the properties of an object. As Rickert points out one needonly make an attempt to describe reality exactlyas it is, i.e., try to achieve a conceptual representation ofit faithful in all its details, to realise very soon how futile such an undertaking is. 15 A person might say Thetable is brown . . . but it is also large, square, five foot high, positioned in the living room, near the window,opposite the door, owned by Jean, bought from a furniture store, and so on. In speech we cannot hope toreproduce the richness of detail about objects that the model or metaphor of copying suggests. The effort todo so is in vain. (Of course, even the best copy is unfaithful to the detail of the original in some respect. Theforger who copies the work of a great artist or the printer who makes a colour plate reproduction of the same

work will misgauge a brush-stroke or change a tone of colour in the original. But none the less what can behoped for is to bring such copies closer to the original and a reproducer, whether the process of copying ismechanical or otherwise, can always improve the method of copying in order to more closely realise this aim.)As Rickert argues, empirical reality proves to be an immeasurable manifoldwhich seems to become greater and

greater the more deeply we delve into it and begin to analyse it and study its particular parts. [Even] thesmallest part contains more than any mortal man has the power to describe. Indeed, the part of reality thatman can include in his concepts and thus in his knowledge is almost infinitesimally small when compared with

what he is meant to disregard. Accordingly, if in order to know reality we had to form a conceptual copyof it,we would be confronted with a problem that is essentially insoluble.16In describing an object we make aselection from amongst the innumerable characteristics of the object, those characteristics which we regard as

worthy of being brought to consciousness. We can never give a total or exhaustive description of objectsin the world. Thus the criterion of the truth of a proposition cannot be its replicating of the object it refers to,but whether the characteristics attributed by the speaker apply to (or are possessed by) the object. Describingis also different from picturing. A picture is a visual, not a linguistic sign. And while pictures certainlyselectively represent what is in the world, the discrimination of pictures is dissimilar from that ofpropositional speech. To picture, e.g., that the cat is on the mat is already to convey visually more information

than we convey in saying The cat is on the matthe drawing tells us that the cat is fat, has its tail in the air,etc. The describing of an object is also different again from the uncovering of an object in the world. It wasHeidegger who suggested that to say an assertion is true signifies that it uncovers an entity in the world.17 Atrue assertion lets the entity be seen in its uncoveredness. In other words, the ideal relationship of

word and object is that the words bring objects out of their hiddenness. But is this the case? The termuncovering, I would argue, is more apt to define a relationship between speech and the internal world offeeling, desire and intention. In saying (truthfully) how we feel, what we want and how we intend to act, weuncover or reveal the contents of our inner nature because we have privileged access to those contents. But asthe world of objects is not private or subjective in the same sense as the inner world, speakers do not haveprivileged access in relation to the external world and correspondingly to seek to understand what it means tosay an assertion is true using the model of revelation is not illuminating.

Incoherence on a speakers part only signifies that there is a problem of truth. It cannot, however, beeffective as a criterion of truth. For a speaker to contradict his or her self or to make statements which areinconsistent (i.e., the entailment of one of these statements is in contradiction with the other) is analogous tothe circumstances where a plurality of speakers conflict amongst themselves about the facts. Rather thandifferent speakers, the same speaker has presented (either explicitly or inexplicitly) incompatiblecharacterisations of an event, an act, a thing or a person. A criterion of truth, by contrast, provides a measureaccording to which a choice may be made between these conflicting characterisations. It should also be notedthat the presence of coherence, equally, is not an indicator of the truth of a statement. For even if what aspeaker says is internally consistent, any of that persons propositions may come into conflict with thepresentations of other speakers. Incoherence on this level, of course, itself does not mean that what thespeaker has said is false; it merely makes the truth of each incompatible statement an issue to be resolved.

The identity of the authors of utterances, open to evaluation, provides a warrant of reliability. Appraisal

of utterances proceeds on the assumption that certain categories or clusters of authorssharing commoninstitutional affiliations, educational qualifications, or personal qualities, etc.,have a privileged access tothe truth. What is seen as important in the appraisal of utterances is not the knowledge of the speaker, but thespeaker who knows; not what is said, but who says it.

According to this view, a statement can be judged true or false according to whether or not it agrees with aset of basic and unshakeable statements. Unlike the coherence thesis, the requirement is not simply that the


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propositions a speaker puts forward (in so far as they form a system or body) are not contradictory. Rather it isthe requirement that the statement agrees with or is compatible with certain exceptionalstatements which thespeaker makes. These are protocol statementswhich, if meaningful, are immune from doubt.

Such a criterionwhich judges statements true or false according to whether or not they can be derivedfrom one or more elementary and indubitable propositionsis modelled on the idea of rationalism. In therationalist conception, statements are required to be compatible with and capable of being deduced from firstprinciples which are true by definition. First principles define or explicate the meanings of words we use.But if the statements we want to subject to appraisal are synthetic, not analytic, then how does this model helpus? In the case of empirical knowledge, the foundations of our knowledgethe first principles so to speakcannot be analytical, or at least not exclusively analytical. And if first principles are synthetic, theycannot be true by definition. We cannot measure their truth by whether or not they faithfully establish how

we use or intend to use words. Or can we? Schlick argued that there was one exception to thisprotocol state-ments.18 Just as in the case of analytical statements, protocol statements are true by definition.

Protocol statements are demonstrative expressions or, in Russells terminology, logically propernames.19 We make protocol statements when we say this, that, here, there, this here, etc.

Russell argued that the meaning of such an expression is grasped by acquaintance with what the expressionnames.20 In other words, a person who puzzles over the meaning of a demonstrative can be brought tounderstanding by being familiarised with the object or location the expression refers to. Schlick took up thispoint, stressing that the speakers explication of what this or there, etc., meant could not becommunicated by means of a verbal definition alone. Explanation of meaning, in this specific context,necessarily involved pointing or some other deictic gesture. Where it was unclear, the meaning of ademonstrative expression or protocol statement could be grasped by being acquaintedthrough pointing,etc.with the object or spatial location referred to. A speaker, in other words, cannot explain the meaning ofa demonstrative expression he or she uses without invoking the presence of the referent. But in doing so, indefining or explicating what he or she meansby indicating the object which has been referred tothespeaker guarantees the truth of what has been said. In the case of a demonstrative or protocol statement, wecannot doubt that the object referred to exists without rendering the statement meaningless. Conversely, if

the statement is meaningless, no object is present which corresponds to the demonstrative expressionwhich is to say the statement is untrue.

The major difficulty, however, with this theoryas Ayer pointed outis that a purely demonstrativeexpression does not convey a propositional content in the full sense of the word. Demonstratives are referringexpressions; they perform no attributive or predicative functions. That is to say, they neither inform nordescribe nor perform any similar roles. A sentence which consists of demonstrative symbols would notexpress a genuine proposition. It would be a mere ejaculation, in no way characterising that to which it wassupposed to refer.21 Yet it is in connection with this function of characterisationattributing and denyingpredicate expressionsthat appraisals of truth and falsity are made.

Habermas, by contrast with these theories which concentrate on the judgement

itself, draws particular attention to the communicative relationship that formsbetween speakers and hearerswhen interlocutors put forward truth judgements(or indeed validity judgements of any kind). In judging a particular statement tobe true an interlocutor enters into a certain communicative relationship withthe author of the statement. This is a relationship of consenting or agreeing,which may be contrasted, say, with the relationship of stating that the authorentered into with the interlocutor. By placing the topic of assent at the centre ofhis theory Habermas displaces the focus of attention toward the illocutionaryact involved in the verbalising of validity judgments and away from the contentof the judgments which are embedded in these illocutionary acts.

Such a consensus theory of truth is not without precedent. WilhelmWindelband, for instance, in his Introduction to Philosophy suggests that atruth-judgment entails two component elements.22 The first or intellectualelement involves the introduction of certain criteria which an utterance mustfulfil in order not to be judged fallible. We . . . come to an agreement first . . .


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as to the form which ideas must have in the strict sense for us to receive them astrue or reject them as false.23 The second or voluntarist element involvesinterlocutors in affirming or denying the connection of ideas which weverbally express as propositions.24 Strawson, in an early essay, also anticipatessome of the ideas Habermas developed independently.25 In this essay Strawsonsuggests that an interlocutor in saying that a particular statement is true orfalse, performs a certain kind of speech act. What the person does is to assent toor dissent from the first-order utterance. The act performed is that of agreeingwith or disagreeing with what another speaker has said. In saying yourstatement is true (A) the character of the interlocutors speech act is not madeexplicit, in the same way as a person in saying close the door (B) does notspecify that the speech act is an order. In neither case is the act pre-fixed by anillocutionary force indicator. If a speaker was required to make explicit theforce of the illocutionary act in (A), however, the most typical indicator theinterlocutor would use would be I agree (your statement is true). Strawsonspecifically rejects those interpretations which construe that the speaker, insaying (A), is either making astatementor is engaging in the act ofrepeatingwhathas been said previously. When we say that a statement is true, we are notmaking a statement about the statement nor are we repeating the statementthat has been made. Speakers can, of course, make statements aboutstatements. In doing so they predicate something of a statement that was madeby some person. Speakers can also repeat statements. This is done when a

speaker says The policeman stated that the accuseds fingerprints were presentat the scene of the crime. But if we were to say the The policeman statementis true, we are neither describing the statement nor are we repeating it, ratherwe are agreeing with (confirming or underwriting) what has been said.26 Therole of our utterance is not to repeat or give information about the first-orderutterance, but to communicate assent concerning the prepositional contents ofthe statement. The illocutionary act thereby performed is not one of stating orrepeating, but one of accepting or corroborating. (We can substitute I agreewith the policemans statement or I confirm the policemans statement forthe policemans statement is true.)

In Habermas version of the consensus theory, the underwriting is not of theutterance as such, but ofvalidity claimswhich are raised in connection with thespeakers utterance. The exemplar of such claims is the claim to truth. Thetruth claim indicates the conviction of the speaker that the propositionalcontent of their utterance could, if necessary, be defended with reasons orgroundsagainst criticism.27 The hearer, in this circumstance, can either acceptor reject the claim (or abstain)but if the hearer takes up a position in relationto the claim (i.e., if he or she agrees or disagrees) then that person must do so inthe light of reasons or grounds.28 The truth claim (most often thematised inconnection with assertoric utterances) is the claim that the utterance, in

representing states of affairs, is well-grounded and as such qualifies for theassent of others. But the truth claim, Habermas argues, is not the only validityclaim which is raised in connection with speakers utterances. Of particularinterest is his suggestion that the claim of normative validity is also made. Thisclaim, like the claim of truth, indicates the conviction of the speaker that the


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utterance (in some morally or practically significant respect) is well-grounded.If the claim is rejected, interlocutors have recourse to arguments or practicaldiscourseto support their claim and establish or restore agreement or mutualunderstanding between communication partners.29 A normatively validutterance is one which is, or could be, argumentatively substantiated. It is anutterance for which we can provide good reasons or groundsin circum-stances where a communication partner doubtsthe speakers claim of normativevalidity. An argument connects reasons or grounds with a problematic validityclaim in a systematic way. The role of the validity claim is, in effect, to indicatethat the utterance could, if necessary, be groundedthat a skeptical interlocutorcould be rationally motivated to recognise or accept the claim. This will notalways be fulfilled in practice. For if a validity claim is brought into question,arguments can provide grounds not only for redeeming claims, but also for therejection (and ultimately the dropping) of such claims. But even in the lattercase, recourse to arguments hold out the promise of the formation of rationalconsensus or agreement between communication partners.

In the case of practical discourses, however, there is considerable uncertaintyabout what Habermas means when he refers to the speakers normative validityclaim. Even if we assume with Habermas that the rightness claim is the claimthat a speakers utterance is a rational expression, is well-grounded, etc.,the question remains: rational in what respect?An utterance can be justified onlyagainst a background of (normally implicit) standards or expectations.

Justificatory discourses seek to show, at least by implication, that a contestedutterance fulfils these expectations. The claim to rationality or validity entailsnot only the claim

1that the utterance is well-grounded but further that the

claim2

that it is well-grounded in a particular respect. Habermas explains andthen often only allusivelynormative validity claims

2differently in various

places:(i) In the first formulation, the speakers claim

2is construed as the claim that

the speakers action (qua agent, not just as speaker) can be justified withreference to an already existing normative background.30 The relevance of this,however, to the evaluation of utterances is highly suspect. This formulation

seems partly the product of a Dilthey-style conflation of action and expression(the treatment of action as a form of expression which is meaningful, etc.). Anexisting normative background may tell us what counts as an acceptableaction on the part of an agent. In saying I had to do itit was my duty to fineyou, the speaker justifies an action by reference to an existing normativebackground. But this does not constitute the justification of an utterance. Thereference in this case to a normative background does not allude to anyyardstick or criterion of what counts as an acceptable moral utterance, so thatwe can, in turn, rationally demonstrate that the utterance we make fulfills thisyardstick or criterion. This problem might have been avoided if Habermas had

talked not in terms of the reasoned justification of actions, but of thejustification of good statements which assess actions in terms of theirnorm-conformity. The validity of good-statements can be doubted orcontested. In encountering a judgement, for example, that a person isavaricious we can question whether the action judged in factfailed to conform


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to the relevant norm. Good-statements involve a claim to truth. In saying thata person is avaricious, the utterer, in the course of judging, represents acertain state of affairs to be the caseviz. that the person whose actions arejudged does stand in a relation of non-conformity with the norms of acquiringwealth or property. But even if the utterers claim can be redeemed or rejectedthrough arguments, the arguments are connected with a truth claim, not anormative validity claim. Moreover, even if arguments have a role to play indeciding validity claims where interlocutors conflict in their assessments ofactionsbecause they differ over whether the actions are norm-conformativeor not; or to what degree they are norm-conformativethis still does not haveany relevance for those situations in which the moral conflicts involve rivalnormsnot rival assessments based on different beliefs about norm-conformity.(ii) In the essay on universal pragmatics, Habermas suggests that the(rationally justifiable) claim

2is that the utterers speech act is right. In this

version interlocutors can affirm or underwrite the validity claim made inrespect of the illocutionary component of the speakers utterance. These claimsconcern the relationship of the speech act to a mutually recognised normativebackground. All utterances, in so far as they involve illocutionary acts, stand inrelation to norms of communicative behaviour. These norms may be satisfied orviolated by particular speech acts. In claiming an utterance is right (ornormatively valid) the speaker claims the performance of the utterance satisfies

certain (relevant) background norms.31

This claim may be affirmed or deniedby interlocutors. So that if person A orders person B Get out of your car!person B may question the validity of the utterance. What right have you toorder me about? The speaker then has the opportunity to refer back to apresupposed normative backgroundto demonstrate that the illocutionary actthat was performed (the command) was norm-conformative. (I am a gamewarden and the Fisheries and Wildlife Act gives me the right to order you tovacate your car so it can be searched.) If A cannot refer to a relevantbackground norm then that person cannot uphold the validity claim.(iii) But what about the cases where there is no mutually recognisedbackground

normwhere one person refers to an underlying norm which the other persondoes not recognise as valid? Or where the matter in contention is not even aboutthe regulation of speech action, but simply a matter of speakers (in theassessment of any type of action) appealing to fundamentally conflicting moralpremisesto norms which stand in radical opposition. In such casesHabermas suggests the speakers claim that the underlying norm they appeal tois right.32 But this claim is emptybecause it does not carry with it anystandard or expectation against which the norm could be evaluated. Unlike inthe case of the second formulation, this validity claim does not carry with it anycriterion of rightness. In the second formulation, the speech act is right because

it satisfies the criterion of conforming with a mutually recognised normativebackground. There is no equivalent of this criterion offered to accompany thepresentation of the third formulation. We might, of course, wish to treatHabermas suggestion that norms should give expression to the generalisableinterests of those affected as a criterion of validity.33 But this is fraught with


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difficulty. Harbermas in a number of places alludes to the idea that only suchnorms as embody interests common to all those affected deservethe recognitionor assent of agents. Habermas, however, also explicates the idea of generalis-able interests as interests that can be communicatively sharedi.e., interestswhich all can agree toon the condition that, where there is initial disagree-ment, the assent of parties is not coerced or pressured, but obtained througharguments in which all have equal rights and equal chance to participate.34

Habermas, moreover, dismisses certain grounds as inadmissable in thejustification of norms in a modern context: viz. mythological, religious,cosmological and metaphysical grounds. In place of material principles likeNature and God, that function as ultimate grounds of justification, he suggeststhat today it is rather the procedures and presuppositions of argumentation thatcan function plausibly as the fundamental principles of justification. But thisretreat from material grounds and good reasons internal to arguments meansthat the putative criterion of validityexpressing generalisable interestsbecomes tied to the outcome of argumentative deliberation. This necessarilyrenders it unworkable as a criterion of validitysimply because criteria have arole withinarguments. Specifically in moral-practical arguments, they providegroundsfor choosing in the face of norm conflicts. Interlocutors most be able tosay in the courseof argument: This norm deserves recognition because it hasthese qualities . . . while thatnorm does not deserve recognition because it doesnot have such qualities. Speakers ground their utterance by giving reasons to

show their utterance fulfills certain standards of rationality. Interlocutorscannot wait for the outcome of arguments before appealing to a criterion ofchoice. But if we are to interpret generalisable interests in the sense ofcommunicatively shared interests, this is what interlocutors would be conde-mned to. At most they could say that a norm is right retrospectivelybecauseit was agreed to under certain conditions (viz. conditions guaranteeing thefreedom and equality of the discourse participants). But the interlocutorswould have no grounds for judging between conflicting norms asparticipants ina discourse.

Truth and Meaning

Arguments, Habermas proposes, make it possible for communicationpartners, in cases where a background consensus has been disturbed, to restorethat consensusthat is, to come to a mutual understanding. This termmutual understanding is used very frequently by Habermas. He treats theidea of consensus as equivalent to understanding between subjects. To reachagreement and to understand are synonymous concepts for Habermas.Correspondingly he equates the sharing of trust, cognition and will betweensubjects with the sharing of meaning. Where there is mutuality of trust, the

sharing of knowledge and the accord of wills between communication partners,there is common understanding. This might be a completely innocuousnotionafter all this conforms with the way we use the expression commonunderstanding in everyday languageexcept that Habermas takes themetaphor of common understanding too literally. He comes too close at times to


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abolishing the difference between understanding qua understanding a speakersmeaning and understandingquaagreeing with what a speaker says. Agreementin belief, etc., is regarded by Habermas literally as one person sharing themeaning of anothers words. Habermas calls the utterance meaning which isshared in these casespragmaticas distinct from the linguisticmeaning which isshared between subjects when a speaker produces a grammatical sentence in anatural language which is also known to a communication partner. (In the caseof common linguistic understanding, satisfying the claim to comprehensibilityis only possible where speakers have mastered the grammatical rules of thenatural language. Chomsky called this mastery of rules linguistic competence.By analogy, Habermas argues that common pragmatic understanding is onlypossible where speakers have a communicative competence, that is, masteryof rules for placing well-formed sentences in relation to the objective, subjectiveand social worlds.)35 I will argue that much is open to criticism in Habermasmove in identifying the notions of consensus and common understanding. Inparticular, Habermas overstretching of the metaphor of common under-standing occludes real questions of pragmatic meaning. The discussion ofpragmatic meaning cannot get started while the inquiry into the problem oftruth masquerades in its place. But, in order to pursue this line of argument, itis necessary to first make more explicit some of the background issues involvedin the distinction between linguistic and pragmatic meaning that Habermasintroduces into his theory of truth.

The term pragmatics has become increasingly used in the wake ofdevelopments in the theory of meaning (particularly stimulated by Wittgen-stein) which have turned away from the purely linguistic considerations ofgrammarians to explore problems of meaning that arise when grammaticallysound expressions are used in particular speech situations. Habermas definespragmatic meaning in terms of the meaning that accrues to sentences, throughtheir use36 We can certainly distinguish the phenomenon of meaning thatcomes about through the employment of a sentence in an utterance from meresentence meaning. We can speak in a pragmatic sense of the meaning of anutterance, as we do in a linguistic sense of the meaning of a sentence.

Habermas singles out Austins concept of illocutionary force as beingilluminating in this respectalthough he has some reservations about it.Austin, he suggests, reserved the concept of meaning for the meaning ofsentenceswith prepositional content, while he usedforceonly for the illocutionaryact of uttering sentences with prepositional content.37 But, argues Habermas,such a distinction is unsatisfactory. If one introduces meaning only in alinguistic sense, as sentence meaning . . . the restriction to propositionalcontents of speech acts is not plausible, obviously their illocutionary compo-nents also have meaning in a linguistic sense.38 Correspondingly, a sentencewith propositional content accrues meaning (in addition to its linguistic

meaning) through its use by speakers in utterances. What Habermas is claimingis that Austin uses the term force to connote the meaning content that accruesto a sentence through its being usedbut that Austin is one-sided inasmuch ashe restricts consideration of the pragmatic aspect of meaning to the illocution-ary component and the linguistic aspect of meaning to the propositional


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component. However, Habermas construing of Austins text is not reallyaccurate. Austin not only distinguishes the meaning of the propositionalcomponent (A) from the meaning or force of the illocutionary component (B),but also distinguishes both (A) and (B) from linguistic meaning. I will go on toshow this in greater detail later. But before this, a word of caution: what is atstake here is not simply a matter of the splitting of hairs about the interpretationof Austins texts. Rather I am suggesting that if we return to look afresh atAustins analysis, and develop a number of suggestions introduced by Austin,this may throw a revealing light not only on Habermas theory of pragmatics buteven more crucially on his theories regarding the structure of speech andthe problem of truth.

Saying something, Austin observed, is a complex business and the speaker inmaking a (sensible) utterance must co-ordinate a number of differentelementsthe phonetic, the phatic, the rhetic and the illocutionary.39 Thephonetic and the phatic acts carry linguistic meanings, while the rhetic andillocutionary acts are pragmatically significant. An utterance is in the firstplace, Austin suggested, a string of certain noises.40 This is the phoneticelement in speaking. But just any sequence of sounds will not necessarily beunderstood by those who hear them.41 A necessary (though not sufficient)condition of a speakers utterance being understood is that it conforms to acertain vocabulary and grammar shared by speaker and listener.42 Austin termsthe act of uttering which conforms in this way the phatic act. Lexicon and

syntax impose a structure on the uttering of sounds. The lexicon designatescertain phonetic units as words. As long as speakers are constrained only to usethe repertory of words, the effect of the lexicon will be to limit the speechsounds that can be used in the act of uttering. Moreover, the lexicon is arrangedas a systemand by virtue of its systemic character, it limits the possiblemeanings which may be attached to any given lexical entity.* Syntax, on the

* It was Saussures insight to conceive of the lexicon as a system. Signs by themselves, he argued, arearbitrary, particularly in the way in which meanings are attached to signifiers. Taken by itself, there is noreason why the meaning (concept or signified) attached to the signifier fortune, for example, could not beanything a language user liked it to be. (The signifier fortune could mean red connoting a colour term

rather than a category of explanation.) What reduces this arbitrariness (idiosyncracy) is the belongingness ofthe sign to a system. The sign, as Saussure argued, is not an autonomous entity, but must be regarded as partof a systemand more particularly as part of an associative (paradigmatic) classa class whose membersshare certain characteristics(e.g., all are categories of explanation), yet are each different from the other. Whatmakes a word linguistically meaningful is that it has systemic relations with other lexical entities. Theserelations are, Saussure argued, relations of oppositionwithin a paradigmatic class. To know the meaning offortune we must (within the class of explanatory categories) be able to distinguish between fortune andnecessity, fortune and determinancy, fortune and certainty or between fortune and intention,fortune and calculation, fortune and deliberation. Each sign has linguistic meaning only by virtue of itsdifference from other signs belonging to a common class. Saussures account, however, ignores the fact that itis not only relations of opposition but also synonymic relations within paradigmatic classes that constrain thearbitrariness of the sign. Fortune, for example, has systemic-synonymic relations with lexemes such as

accident, chance. Also missing from Saussures account is a recognition that a sign may belong to morethan oneparadigmatic class. Thus fortune may belong to the class of explanatory categories, but also to theclass of terms to do with the magnitude of wealth or other extrinsic goods. In terms of this second class,fortune can be opposed to poverty, deprivation, but it also has synonymic relations with wealth,riches, prosperity. The fact that the same lexical unit can belong to more than one paradigmatic class, ofcourse, is a rich source ofambiguity(double meanings).


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other hand, organises sequences of words into sentences. It limits the ways inwhich words can be combined together. The selectivity and systemic characterof the lexicon and the regulation of syntax hold in check the arbitrariness ofphonetic acts. The very limits they impose on the phonetic act means thatelementary units of speech and the ways of combining those units becomeresources and rules which acommunityof speakers may have access to. And it isthe public availability of these resources and ruleswhat de Saussure called thesocial side of speech (or language)43which in turn makes possible that whatis spoken has not merely a private significance, which only the speaker canunderstand, but that there can be an identity of meaning for speaker and heareralike. If a speaker says The rain out of come in, that is, produces anon-sentence, or produces a sentence (a phonetic sequence with a recognis-able syntactic structure) using an admixture of private signs and lexical entities(Yibble in out of the oene) or simply produces a collection of signs which donot accord with syntactic rules or lexical restrictions (tid oee ged yit poensutt) or used the word rain but means sunshine (placing systemicopposites or contrastives in a synonymic relation)what results will bemeaningless for a communication partner. If there is understanding of what issaid, at most it will only be subjective (meaningful for the speaker only), but notintersubjective (meaningful for speaker and hearer alike). Without the shared,public facility of language, the arbitrariness of individual efforts to communi-cate would make impossible common understanding between speakers and

hearers.We can call the lack of comprehension which arises when speakers employnon-words or non-sentences (such as in the preceding examples) linguistic incharacter because it arises from the failure of the speaker to have mastered therules and resources of a natural language and to have used them or followedthem correctly. The absence of understanding between speakers and listenersin these sorts of cases is not tied to any specific occasion in which such aberrantsigns or strings might be used. Irrespective of occasion, such utterances cannot beunderstood by others because the speaker has emitted a phonetic sequenceoutside the constraints of a language. But, even presuming a speaker puts

forward an utterance which is lexically and syntactically sound, problems ofmeaning may affect what is said. In this case, however, what we utter will not becomplete nonsense (that is, it will not be meaningless). The sentence uttered willhave alinguistic sense. Rather, it can be the case that the meaning of what is said,or more particularly of what a speaker intended to say, will be impaired orfaulty. The issues of meaning which arise in this connection arepragmaticones.Austin is fairly careful to distinguish between questions of linguistic andpragmatic meaning. He is aware, in particular, that there are major semanticissues which cannot be explained in purely linguistic terms. Restricting himself justto a consideration of the referring components of sentences (naming words)

used by speakers, Austin points out that, on the level of the rhetic act, theunderstanding between communication partners may become rupturedbecause the naming words used may be ambiguous or obscure.44 This is not afunction of the speakers inadequate grasp of lexical resources or syntacticalrules. Rather the problem of ambiguity is tied to the use of lexemes (or


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syntactical combinations) in concrete situations.We can illustrate how meaning-impairment can arise because of vagueness or

obscurity on the part of the utterer with the following simple example: a personis threatened with eviction from a house and is seeking help. An acquaintancesays: I advise you to go to the minister. Now the utterer in this case does notspecify what sort of minister he or she is talking about (a minister of religion or aminister of state) and if this has not been established in the course of or from thecontext of the communication, then the utterer will have committed the fault ofvagueness; the speakers meaning will be unclear or ambiguous. It will invite aresponse seeking clarification of the meaning of the word minister. Thespeakers utterance is not incomplete in the linguistic senseI advise you togo to the minister is not syntactically ill-formed and the words which make upthe string do not belong to a private vocabulary. Rather the difficulty inmeaning presented by the utterance is a consequence of the speakers lack ofprecision about the particular connotations of a word which has diverseconnotations. Of course, a formal or linguistic semantics can describe rules thatspeakers intuitively employ for distinguishing ambiguous from non-ambiguoussentences (the sentence if conjoined with its own denial is not necessarily acontradiction). But once the hearer has recognised ambiguity, dissolution ofambiguity must proceed at a pragmatic level. The word minister can be usedto convey different meanings. To isolate the correct meaning simply means toisolate the manner in which the speaker has used the lexeme on this specific

occasion. Did the speaker use it in this instance intending to convey a secular ornon-secular connotation? Ambiguity arises in such cases as this because of thepolysemic character of words. Polysemy provides a counterpoint to theconstraints of the lexicon. As weve seen, lexical structures are necessarilyrestrictive in character. They select from all the possible sounds a speaker coulduse in effecting communication a finite class of entities (lexemes). A speakercannot use just any sounds s/he pleases in communicatingto do so would be tomake an acoustic, not symbolic, contact with others. But in contrast to theconstraints imposed by the lexicon a liberalising factor is presentwhile thewords made available by a natural language for employment in speaking are

relatively small in number (especially in comparison with the enormous varietyof sounds and sound combinations that the human vocal organs are capable ofgenerating) they are also polysemic in characterthat is, they are capable ofcarrying more than one meaning.45 Where there is not a one-to-one relationshipbetween word and sense, the potential is there for a speaker to produce anutterance which is ambiguous or equivocal.46 An auditor may impute a sensenot intended by the speaker or may identify more than one sense which may beattributed to the utterance. Whereas when a speaker produces a non-sentence,it will result in non-understanding on the part of auditorsexcept in the caseswhere the sentence is ill-formed but still acceptable for the hearer, that is,

where the hearer guesses its linguistic structure such as in the example Carwatch out!in the case of ambiguous speech there is either a surfeit of understandingor misunderstanding. In the case of misunderstanding, the heareris in a position to assign a meaning to what has been said, but the meaning theauditor imputes is different from the meaning the speaker intended to convey.


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Where misunderstanding occurs, the non-identity of meaning between speakerand hearer will persist unless difficulties in making sense of subsequentutterances which presuppose the misunderstood utterance force a recognitionon the part of the conversants of the non-identity. In the case where there is asurfeit of understanding, a communication partner recognises the ambiguity ofwhat has been said, viz. that it can be taken in more than one sense. Wherecommunication partners are co-present (where a continued communicativeexchange between them is possible), then the auditor, who has recognised (butcannot decide between) plural meanings, can ask the speaker to explain what ismeant. (Of course, when the speaker is not available to give an explanationthen the communication partner must assume the burden of interpretation.)There are various ways in which a speaker can explain what he or she means (bygiving a definition, illustrating with a visual equivalent, by making a gesture,etc.), but explanation normally entails the showing of the relation of theequivocal word (the source of ambiguity) to other words or other signs.47 And,in such cases, the interpretants of words, whether words themselves or bodilygestures or icons, can in turn have their meaning explained by other linguistic(or visual or bodily) expressions.48 The totality of these expressions form, if youlike, the points of intersection of a semiotic network. For the explication ofmeaning, what is important is not the points themselves, but how they stand inrelation to each other.

Austin, it must be stressed, does not pursue the question of ambiguity or

polysemantics in any depth at all. Moreover his treatment of the question is alsolimited in its scope. For example, there is no indication from Austin thatpolysemic ambiguity is not the only form, of ambiguity that may be present on aspeech occasion. (He ignores, in particular, syntactical ambiguity.)49 But whatmatters most is that Austin, at least in raisingthe issue of the ambiguity of wordstouches upon a theme whichgoes to the very heart ofany pragmatically orientatedsemantics. What is more confusing, however, is that Austin does not only treatpragmatic meaning in polysemic (polysemantic) terms. He also explicatespragmatic meaning impairment in terms of the failure of reference of namingwords. Meaning impairment in this version is understood to occur where a

referring expression or naming word makes a singular identification of an objectwhich does not exist.50 In doing so, the expression fails to conform to certainconditions of validity which a speakers utterance must fulfil before we arewarranted in accepting the utterance as true. In arguing that it is both thesense and the reference of the rhetic act which are equivalent to its meaning.Austin assimilates a theory of meaning descended both from Frege and theLogical Positivists.51 The key postulate of this semantic theory is that theutterance of a speaker can be understood if, and only if, the hearer knows howto verify the utterance. Utterances for which we do not know the truth-conditions lack sense. Truth thus assumes a central role in the account we give

of the meaning of expressions. In particular, to understand a constativeutterance we have to know what conditions must be fulfilled for what is said tobe true.52 This approach to the theory of meaning is, as we shall see, also takenup and elaborated by Habermas. I would argue, however, that this truth-conditional theory of meaning is mistaken and misleadingthat it confuses the


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quite separate issues of understanding and validity and that it ultimatelyobscures the problem of meaning.

NOTES

1 Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), pp. 36, 41-44; Thoughts on the Foundation ofSociology in the Philosophy of Language, The Gauss Lectures, presented February-March1971, Princeton University, Lectures 3 and 4. Habermas repeats this formulation in TheTheory of Communicative Action(Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), although it assumes a muchdiminished prominence. See pp. 306-307 in particular.

2 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976),

Lecture VI.3 Jrgen Habermas, What is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., p. 41.4 Ibid., pp. 36, 52.5 Ibid., pp. 42-43.6 Jrgen Habermas, Thoughts on the Foundation of Sociology in the Philosophy of

Language, op. cit.., Lecture 4, and Toward a Theory of Communicative Competence,Inquiry, no. 13, p. 367.

7 Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., p. 54.8 Ibid.9 Jrgen Habermas, Introduction, Theory and Practice(Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), p. 18;

Thoughts on the Foundation of Sociology in the Philosophy of Language, op. cit., Lecture

3; What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., p. 2; The Theory of Communicative Action, op.cit., pp. 15-22, 38-42, 99.10 Jrgen Habermas, A Reply to my Critics, in John Thompson and David Held, eds.,

Habermas: Critical Debates (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 270-271; The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 74-101.

11 G.E. Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy(London: Allen and Unwin, 1953), chapterXIV.

12 Aristotle, Metaphysica, in J.A. Smith and W.D. Ross, eds., The Works of Aristotle, vol. 8(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), 1011626.

13 P.F. Strawson, On Referring, Mind 59 (1950); Truth in G. Pitcher, ed., Truth(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964).

14 Alfred Schtz, Some Structures of the Life-World, in Thomas Luckmann, ed.,Phenomenology and Sociology(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), p. 266.

15 H. Rickert, Science and History(Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1962), p. 32.16 Ibid.17 Martin Heidegger,Being and Time(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), pp. 261-268.18 Moritz Schlick, The Foundation of Knowledge, in A.J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism,

(Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959).19 Russells Logical Atomism, ed. David Pear (London: Collins, 1972), p. 65.20 Ibid., p. 57.21 A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971) p. 121. See also

Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956), p. 53.22 Wilhelm Windelband, Introduction to Philosophy(London: Unwin, 1921), pp. 170-172.23 Ibid., p. 170.24 Ibid., pp. 170-171.25 P.F. Strawson, Truth,Analysis9:6 (1949).26 Ibid., p. 92.


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27 Jrgen Habermas, Theories of Truth., English translation, unpublished, of Wahrheits-theorien, in H. Fahrenbach, ed., Wirklichkeit und Reflexion. Festschnft fr W. Schulz(Pfllingen, 1973); The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 9, 11, 17, 38.

28 Jrgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., p. 38.29 The validity claim of comprehensibility may also, if necessary, be argumentatively

groundedin explicative discourses. Sincerity, on the other hand, cannot begrounded, onlyshown. If we doubt the sincerity of what somebody saysif we think that person is feigningthe expression of some belief, attitude or desirethat persons professions of sincerity,honesty, etc., serve as a stronger restatement of their claim to authenticity, but do not serveto redeem the claim. It is only by acting consistently in line with the utterance that the aura ofinauthenticity can be dispelled. Ibid., p. 41.

30 Ibid., pp. 15-21, 19, 39. Habermas introduces the first and third formulations side-by-sideon pp. 88-89.

31 Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., pp. 3, 28, 29, 35, 37-39.32 Jrgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), pp. 105, 107; A Reply

to my Critics, op. cit., pp. 246-257; The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 88-89.33 Jrgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, op. cit., pp. 20, 89.34 Jrgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, op. cit., p. 108. For Habermas insistence that it is

onlysuch procedural requirements (or presuppositions) of argumentsand not mythical,metaphysical, etc., groundswhich can serve as ultimate grounds of justification in modernsocieties, see Legitimation Problems In The Modern State, Communications and theEvolution of Society, op. cit., pp. 184-185. See also The Theory of Communicative Action, op.cit., p. 68.

35 Jrgen Habermas, What Is Universal Pragmatics? op. cit., pp. 27-29.

36 Ibid., p. 45.37 Ibid., p. 44.38 Ibid.39 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., Lectures VII-IX.40 Ibid., p. 92.41 Bernard Harrison discusses this question in hisAn Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

(London: Macmillan, 1979), chapter 1.42 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., pp. 93, 98.43 F. de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 14.44 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., pp.96-98.45 J. Lyons, Language, Meaning and Context(London: Collins, 1981), pp. 43-47; Paul Ricoeur,

Creativity in Language, The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978),pp. 124-127; Stephen Ullman, The Principles of Semantics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957),pp. 92-96, 106-138, 174-177; Stephen Ullman, Semantics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962),chapter 7.

46 Despite the polysemic character of lexemes, normally the utterances that a speaker makeswill not be encountered as ambiguous nor misunderstood by hearers. One reason for this isthat each utterance of a speaker is typically part of a larger whole which hearers can refer to inorder to make clear the significance of the part. The hearer constantly moves (albeit belowthe level of consciousness) from the part to the whole of the communication, selecting themeaning of the part that fits or tallies with the verbal context in which it is embedded. Toreturn to our example: if the person who has been evicted from the house has expressed aninterest in charity, thispre-textcould exclude the lexeme minister being used with secularconnotations. If the same person, however, had expressed an interest in welfare(or of havingthe law of landlord and tenant changed), thispre-textcould exclude minister being usedwith clerical connotations. An auditor may also use background informationin interpreting aspeakers utterance. A speaker, for example, might say: Jean got the papers from her


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bureau. The lexeme bureau is polysemic. The utterance could mean that the subject Jeanretrieved the papers in question from a writing desk with drawers or from somedepartmental or official work-place. In imputing a meaning, an auditor may rely on what he

or she knows about persons or circumstances mentioned in the utterance. If an auditor isaware that the subject Jean does not use or own a writing desk with drawers, but does work ina government office, the auditor may use this background information to decode theutterance. Drawing on a stock of knowledge about Jeans circumstances, the auditor isdirected toward a particular interpretation option. In performing this sort of operation, if wereflect on it at all we infer from the stock of information available to us (relevant to theutterance) that the lexeme could not be used otherwise. But more than likely we do not evenconsider other options. We simply make a connection between our knowledge and anunderstandingwe pass directly from one to the other. The difficulty with this process,however, is that our background information may be wrongin that case we can make quitean erroneous imputation of the meaning. On the other hand, our background knowledge

about matters mentioned in the utterance may be in order, but our interlocutor may bemisinformed.To pursue our example further: our hypothetical speaker may believe that Jeangot the papers from a writing desk. In other words, the speaker may intend using bureauto connote a desk, not an officewhile, because our knowledge of the subject Jean isbetter, we come to misunderstand the speaker. We (wrongly) select-out (or do not evenconsider) the writing desk option, because we know the subject Jean does not possess suchan item. We read into the speakers utterance a meaning which conforms with ourfore-knowledge, but which does not correspond with the meaning intended by the speaker. Spinozain particular warned of the risks of interpreting what is said in the light of ourfore-knowledgewe end up giving a charitable interpretation which fits our knowledge,

but distorts the intended meaning of the utterer. (A Theologico-Political Treatise,New York,Dover, 1951, Chapter VII.)It is not, however, only the verbal context or background information which guides the

auditors imputation of meaning where language exhibits a polysemic character. Even morebasic than either of these is the semantic grammarof a speech community. For while lexemesavailable to speakers may carry more than one meaning, the range of alternative meanings islimited by the conventions which make up this semantic grammar. That is to say, theliberalisation of lexical constraint introduced by the polysemic character of the lexemes of alanguage should not be mistaken for anomie. For although a speaker may use the samelexeme to convey different meanings, the diversity of connotations which may attach to anyword, the layers of meaning which may have accrued about a particular lexeme, is not

unlimited in scope. The possible alternatives which an auditor has to choose between iscorrespondingly restricted. We might say with Wittgenstein that in employing poiysemiclexemes a speaker has to obey rules. These rules establish certain limits on the different waysin which the words can be used which if violated mean that speakers cross over into thedomain of nonsense. The rules which govern the employment of polysemic words permitthem to be used in certain ways, but not in others. Usage is pluralistic, but not indiscrimin-ately plural. Liberalisation does not give way to unfettered licence. It is permissible to do thisand this and this with the word, but not this and this and this. What the rule prohibits isexplicit enough but by their very character (as being permissives) these rules necessarilyembody a certain vagueness. (Indeed perhaps we can only say they function as rules only inso far as they prohibit.) Under the rules, this andthis andthis is a permissible useage (i.e., itis not prohibited by law) but beyond this the rule is not specific. When a speaker uses theword, has this person intended to use it in this way or this way or this way? WhenWittgenstein asked his imaginary interlocutor what he understood by (the proper name)N, he got back a definition, but then the interlocutor was prepared to withdraw and alterit, to give him an alternative definition (Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Blackwell,


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1967, Paragraphs 79 and 82). So, asked Wittgenstein, how am I to determine the rule bywhich he is proceeding? Is it perhaps that the imaginary interlocutor does not know the rulehimself? Wittgenstein, however, pushes this latter course of inquiry asidehe suggests

rather that a better question to ask is: what is the character of the rule being followed? Thecharacter of the rule is that it lets doubts creep in. A rule stands like a sign-postDoes thesign-post leave no doubt about the way I have to go? Does it show which direction I am totake when I have passed it; whether along the road or the foot-path or cross-country? (Ibid.,Paragraph 85). Precisely because the sign-posts of our language games doembody a certainvaguenessbecause, despite what they do prohibit, they still allow us more than one way ofmoving onwe still face having to choose between alternative possible meanings. Yet, onthe other hand, because these sign-posts do provide somedefinite direction, the choices wehave to make are not impossibly difficult.

47 Lyons, in contrast, suggests that the meaning of an expression is alwaysdependent on itsrelationship to other expressions (John Lyons, Language, Meaning and Context, op. cit.,pp. 60-67.) Russell, however, argued that there are words which have meaning in isolation.InAn Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth (London: Unwin, 1980), he preferred the view that wenormally learn the meaning of a word by a definitioni.e., in terms of words which wealready know the meaning of. But if we define wordsexplain their meaningsby means ofother words, there must be some words of which we know their meaning without a verbaldefinition (p. 66). These Russell called object-words. The meaning of an object-word islearnt by hearing it pronounced in the presence of an object (p. 67). As soon as theassociation between object and word has been established, the word is understood in theabsence of the object. Lyons in response argues that if we explain the meaning of a word thiswaye.g., to a child learning its first wordswe still have topoint out the relationship of

word and object. We have to use a gestural sign or demonstrative pronoun to draw theothers attention to the connection of the word with a particular object. Thus Lyons suggestsa condition of learning the meaning of an object-word is that we understand the meaning ofthe gesture or demonstrative used. And so therefore, he concludes, the meaning ofindividual words cannot be learnt independently of other words or signs. But this is unfair toRussell. The ostensive gesture or demonstrative pronoun are not the meaning of theobject-word. They are not interpretants of the word. They draw attention to an association.It is the object which explains what the word means.

48 Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979),pp. 66-72.

49 For a discussion and comparison of both polysemic and syntactic ambiguity, see J.G. Kooij,

Ambiguity in Natural Language (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1971). Like the lexicon,syntax functions as one of the fundamental constraints of language, permitting speakers tomove from the production ofarbitrary sequencesof lexemes to a situation where there are(shared intuitive) rules for the combination of lexemes. The corresponding reduction ofarbitrariness in the process of verbalising facilitates the making accessible to others of themeaning of the speaker. Each lexeme of a language can be categorised according to one ormore syntactic classification (or syntactic marker)for example, noun, verb, adjective,article, etc. Syntactical rules state the combination of these categories which make up asentence (or grammatical string). The production of a string of lexemes in accord with thesyntactical rules of a language guarantees that what is said will not absolutely be withoutmeaning. A speaker who in making an utterance produces a sentence will on some level becomprehended by a communication partner (providing the partner shares the linguisticcompetence or the tacit stock of syntactic knowledge of the speaker). But such syntacticfidelity does not guarantee against the possible impairment of meaning. Consider thesentence (1) They are visiting firefighters. Such a sentence may be employed in a speechsituation with the connotation either: (i) They are in the act of visiting firefighters or that (ii)


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They are flrefighters who are making a visit. The reason why it is possible to assign differentinterpretations to this sentence is that we can identify more than onesyntactical sequencewhich the speaker could have followed in producing the sentencethat is, underlying the

surface structure of the sentence we can identify two deep structures (cf. N. Chomsky,Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Massachusetts, M.I.T. Press, 1965.) The same string oflexemes thus may be produced in accordance with more than one rule of syntax. Where asentence like this is used by a speaker on a particular occasion, that is, in a pragmatic setting,the speaker will normally intend one not both grammatical possibilities. Correspondingly,on different occasions, a speaker may use the same sentence (that is a sentence with anidentical surface structure), but generate it in accordance with different syntacticalcombinations. On the other hand, an auditor must decide what the grammatical intention ofthe speaker is. To recognisea string as a sentence (that is, to recognise that it conforms withthe rules of grammar) is a linguistic ability. But to successfully choose on particularoccasions between different possible syntactical structures underlying a sentence, making a

selection which corresponds with the meaning intended by the speaker, is a pragmaticability. In such circumstances, because what is said is a sentence it will have a linguisticsense, yet the apprehension of its meaning may still be impairedwhere (given more than onepossible underlying syntactic structure) an auditor wrongly identifies the grammaticalintention of the speaker, or where an auditor hesitates in choosing or cannot choose betweensyntactic options,

50 J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, op. cit., pp. 93, 96-98.51 See, for example, A.J. Ayr, Language, Truth and Logic, Chapter 1; Michael Dummett,

Freges Distinction Between Sense and Reference, Truth and Other Enigmas (London:Duckworth, 1978), pp. 116-144.

52 While the Fregean accountwhich probably influenced Austin as a translator of Frege mostdirectlyinsists that (in Dummetts words) truth plays a crucial role in the account wegive of the meaning of expressions, it none the less does allow for other ingredients ofmeaning apart from truth-conditions, such as theforceattached to sentences. The mentionof other ingredients is not evident, however, in the theory of meaning associated with thelogical positivists. Cf. Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, pp. 117-118.

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3.1 - Kothari, Rajni - Meaning, Thruth and Ethical Value (en)

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